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SF Mime Troupe

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A mime troupe that cannot keep quiet will perform at Hope College on Wednesday, Oct.
10, at 8 p.m. in the DeWitt Center main theatre.

The Tony-award winning San Francisco Mime Troupe brings its well-known sense of humor,
political insight, and great music to Holland as part of Hope College's Critical Issues
Symposium, "Earth Matters: Daily Decisions, Environmental Echoes."

But this mime troupe is anything but quiet, instead using the ancient sense of the
word "mime," which means mimic. So there is talking, singing, and plenty of laughter
when ever this venerated political-comedy company appears on stage.

"Eating It," is a thought-provoking and humorous look at the specter of market-driven
genetic engineering. The new play embodies the political wit that has earned the Troupe
national and international acclaim for more than four decades.

"Eating It" premiered in San Francisco on July 4, 2000, and went on to set record
numbers for audience attendance on its summer tour of Bay Area parks and theaters
throughout Northern California.

Science fiction satire set in the immediate future, the play presents protagonists
Synthia and Isaac Albright, genetic engineers and creators of Super Corn, a genetically
enhanced vegetable. The patent on Super Corn has made them famous and garnered them
the full support of a corporation "BobCo." Now Synthia is working on an even more
powerful seed, one she hopes will end world hunger, and Isaac knows will make them
wealthy. The new seed seems to offer an extraordinary opportunity for good and enormous
profit, but before it is to be released at the World Food Conference, Synthia is having
second thoughts about its impact on the environment.

With protestors in the streets, the President preparing to become "the man who fed
the world," and the CEO from BobCo controlling events for his economic advantage,
a mysterious Old Man arrives desperate to stop Synthia from releasing Super Corn.

Is he some Luddite nut? Or is he really from the future where the world has been ravaged
by mutant plants, genetic contamination, and reduced to a barren wasteland? Will Synthia
believe him? And why does he look so much like Isaac?

"The corn doesn't just grow high in the San Francisco Mime Troupe's 'Eating It.' The
bio-engineered super-corn grows high fast - very fast. It not only resists herbicides,
it cannibalizes neighboring plants and replaces them. Devised to combat world hunger,
it's a worldwide environmental nightmare leaving a legacy of 'dark acid clouds raining
mutant genes on the seared flesh of Mother Earth,'" says Robert Hurwitt, theater critic
at the "San Francisco Examiner."

Never a company to shy away from tackling large political questions, the San Francisco
Mime Troupe has been producing socially relevant musical theater since 1959. The Troupe
has been called "the most established anti- establishment theater" in the United States.
Endowed with a wealth of artistically inspired members, the Troupe's emphasis has
remained on the ensemble not the ego, holding closely to the ideals of multiculturalism,
equal wages, mentoring, and passionate popular theater.

The San Francisco Mime Troupe has won numerous Bay Area Theatre Critics' Circle Awards.
It won its first OBIE Award in 1968 for "uniting theater and revolution and grooving
in the parks." Since then, two more OBIEs, the coveted Tony Award for excellence in
regional theater, and the Bay Area Media Alliance's Golden Gadfly Award for Lifetime
Achievement, have been added to the list of the company's many honors.

Hailed by "San Francisco Examiner" theater critic Robert Hurwitt as one of "the four
pillars of Bay Area theater," "politically acute and theatrically inventive," the
Troupe recently completed a successful East Coast tour, where "The New York Times"
called the group "a mime troupe that has a lot to say."

Tickets are $10 for the public, and $5 for Hope College students, faculty, and staff.
Tickets may be purchased on Tuesday-Friday, Oct. 2-5, and Wednesday, Oct. 10, from
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the theatre lobby ticket office in the DeWitt Center, located
on Columbia Avenue at 12th. Tickets may also be ordered during that time by calling
(616) 395-7890. Please note that box office is closed Saturday-Tuesday, Oct. 6-9,
due to Hope College?s Fall Break.